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Still Searching for Republicans With Climate Concerns

By Andrew C. Revkin January 5, 2012 3:25 pmJanuary 5, 2012 3:25 pm

The Climate Desk, a collaborative journalism project of Mother Jones and several other publications, has produced a video searching in vain for a Republican presidential candidate willing to make any science-based statements on climate.

The punchy piece largely supports the conclusion of various analysts that global warming has matured as a litmus-test issue for conservatives, right up there with gun rights. In essence, you can’t be a Republican and be for action of any kind to stem greenhouse gases. (The inverse does not appear true for liberals. President Obama has certainly demonstrated of late that you can be a liberal, at least on social and fiscal issues, and be mute on what I last year called “the C word.”)

Toward the end of the video you hear from a truly rare species, a New Hampshire conservative who sees climate change as important.

Then comes Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who’s been studying possible impacts of greenhouse warming on tropical storms for decades – and who has lately been vocal about his longtime affiliation with the Republican Party.

“Responsibility is a big Republican theme,” Emanuel says. “Why should they not take responsibility for what we collectively are doing to the climate system?”

Oddly, the marching orders for Republican presidential candidates appear to be out of sync with attitudes of most members of their party, outside a small fringe that is obstructionist on anything smacking of an energy policy. This makes the field of candidates deserving of the 2011 Climate B.S. Award (B.S. for “bad science”) that they received today from the environmental analyst and blogger Peter Gleick.

I’m sure Marc Morano of Climate Depot will be able to keep collating, and taking credit for, Republican statements of climate doubt at least through the end of the primary season.

Perhaps once the silly season is over, and the surviving candidate starts seeking broader support, climate-smart energy policies could be mentionable once more. Until then there remains a “fundamental Republican science problem.”

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.